Monthly Archives: May 2025

Dragons Roar again at Himley

Posted on by
Our club’s annual Dragon Boat Event took place on May 18th on the great lake at Himley Park. The weather was fantastic (after all, we did order it back in February…) and the crowds came in droves.
The Dragon Boat Event Company looked after all of the on-water proceddings beautifully – ensuring that all 34 teams raced on time and were kept safe. If not a little ‘splashed’ here and there hoho!
The team at Himley did a great job in looking after all of the car parking and this year, I think the grounds were in the best condition that we have seen for years so well done to the whole events and grounds team.
Members of the Wolverhampton Central Youth Theatre did all of the early marshalling of cars in and out of the event area so it’s a big thanks to them too.
The Midcounties Co-operative Doing Good Together Fund helped with the costs of providing medical cover on the day and the support of our printing genius at Prontaprint Wolverhampton should not go un-recognised.
And we definitely have to congratulate Crafted Kitchens who took the honours in the Grand Final followed closely by Sponsored Breaks Buoys, and in third place, How to Drown your Dragon.
In fact, first and second place were separated by 8 hundredths of a second!
Pretty close eh?
In the minor final, Dewsbury and Proud came home first with Wintech’s Brettalion in second place followed by the anaesthetists from the Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust, and their boat Row-Crew-Ronium (it’s a play on words for a type of anaesthetic haha) coming home third.
And in this race, the difference between 1st and 6th was less than a second.
Again, wow!
This major fund-raising event is a huge team effort with a great many people supporting the event in one way or another, with our own club turning out in numbers on the day.
We couldn’t do it alone- so thank you to everyone who played a part.
More details and photos on the links below…..

Young people build bridges with Rotary again

Posted on by

On 15th and 16th May, 96 year 5 pupils at Uplands Junior School faced up to the Rotary Junior Technology Challenge with the Rotary club of The City of Wolverhampton over 2 exciting days when we were delighted to make our annual return visit. We were pleased to be joined this time by volunteers from the Global Diabetes Initiatives UK who came along to help, organised by club member Rotarian Matilda Chongwa.

The challenge was for the youngsters to build a bridge to allow a squirrel to cross without being blown off in a gale – with the gale being created by the use of a hairdryer, accompanied by much laughter from all concerned. The challenge takes the form of guidance as part of a STEM (science technology and mathematics) briefing during which the pupils learned in a light-hearted way, what it means to be an engineer.

The pupils had divided themselves into teams of 4, giving themselves a variety of fun names such as ‘chicken jockey’ and’ the ‘4 amigos.’ At the end of each day, the teams ‘cookie crumble’ and ‘doughnuts ‘were judged to be the worthy winners of the book token prizes, having best met the criteria and shown the greatest team working spirit.

In thanking the Rotarians and volunteers headteacher Mrs. Suzanne Webster-Smith said “It was great to see all the children engaged and showing great teamwork throughout the 2 days.”

PDG Richard Green.